Saturday 10 April 2010

Harder the second time around

While the arbiting team for the Sydney International Open are finding this tournament easier than the O2C Doeberl Cup (half the tournaments, half the players, half the trouble!), the same is not true for the players. For our visitors from Europe, back to back 9 round events played with a 2 round a day schedule is quite a shock. It then isn't made any easier when you play a 5 and half our marathon, finishing half an hour before the start of the afternoon round.
For a long time the round 5 between GM's Panchanathan and Bojkov was heading for a draw, at least if the 50 move draw rule came into play. The last pawn move was on move 35, and for the next 40 moves the players rearranged their pieces, while no captures were made and no pawns moved. Then on move 75 it all kicked off.

75.h4 Rb2 76.Nxb2 Rxb2 77.Qc1 Qb8 78.Kd1 Bxa4 79.Bxa4 Rb1 80.h5 gxh5 81.Rxh5 Bd8 82.R5h2 Ba5 83.Rc2 c4 84.Ke2 Rxc1 85.Rhxc1 Ne7 86.Ra2 Ng6 87.Bc6 Qb6 88.Bf2 Qb3 89.Rcc2 Nf4+ 90.Kd2 Bxc3+ 91.Rxc3 Qxa2+ 92.Rc2 Qa5+ 93.Kd1 Qa3 0-1

If only they had done that on move 36 ...

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